health

I’m currently drinking a coffee and recovering from a great HIIT session! As you may know, Mondays are always HIIT days. They tend to be really busy days for me, so I like to get it done in the morning to kick off my day.

This weekend was a mix of fun, stress, and relaxation. My mom is in the hospital, so that definitely put a damper on things. She’s doing okay and will hopefully be going home in the next few days.

I spent Saturday hanging with a good friend and just catching up. I don’t have many close friends in LA (as anyone that’s moved away from home knows, new friends are much different than lifelong friends), so it’s nice to spend time with the few that I do. We also got to hang with the cutest french bulldog in the world, Pudge:

Seriously…can I keep him?

Saturday evening, Charlie and I got together with some of my co-workers. We had a great time chatting and eating (what’s better than that!). We had grand plans to go see a movie afterwards, but literally spent 20 minutes driving through the parking garage to find a spot. NOT. ONE. SPOT. So we headed home and watched World War Z instead. It basically reminded me of The Walking Dead and Outbreak rolled into one and not nearly as good. Brad Pitt was okay to look at though. 😀

Sunday was pretty uneventful. I dyed my hair, did laundry, and got a bunch of work done. Charlie and I also got a great fully body workout done. (I’ll have some videos up this week!) I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m trying to kill him every time he steps in the gym. I swear I’m not….(but he better be nice!!! ;-))

Breakfast this morning is 1 egg + 1/2 cup egg whites scrambed and 1/3 cup cooked oats with cinnamon and stevia. I’m a creature of habit and basically eat this for breakfast every day. I’m super exciting, you don’t even have to tell me.

I’m working all day and then plan on doing a Chest/Triceps workout after work. You may have noticed that I’ve been doing more split body part days lately. I go through stages. Sometimes I do more full body workouts, or split between upper/lower body workouts, and sometimes I revert to plain old bodybuilding style and do split body parts (like I am now). I still do full body workouts (like this one I did last week, and one I did yesterday), but I do them closer to 1-2 times per week as opposed to 3-4 times.

I know that everybody talks about “confusing the body” and all that jazz (hint…your body doesn’t need to be “confused” to make progress), but for me, I do what feels good. I go through stages and since I’m in this for the long haul (life), I do workouts that make me happy. I truly think that is the key to sticking to fitness. If you don’t like what you’re doing (and I’m convinced there is something for everyone), you’re less likely to stick to it. Personally, I don’t like yoga. So I don’t force myself to do it. Instead, I do other things that I DO like. Of course, I do think that sometimes the things we don’t like are the things that we NEED (like yes, I know I SHOULD do some yoga), so it’s good to incorporate those things from time to time. Long story short:

Find the things you like and do them often. Find the things you don’t like, and do them sometimes.

I’m just sitting at home waiting for the pest control guy. Fun stuff! We’ve had a ridiculous ant problem for the last two weeks and we FINALLY got someone to come out and fix the problem. It’s been quite a nightmare. Let’s just say, I’m a pro ant-annihilator at this point. -_-

In other news, I found a new protein powder that I’m excited to try called SLAP. I actually ended up buying the entire stack of supplements, which is just L-Glutamine, Whey Isolate Protein Powder, and a Coffee Pre-Workout supplement. I was intrigued by the company because of the minimal and clean ingredients in all of their products. The protein powder is sweetened with Stevia (score!) and doesn’t have any artificial ingredients. I haven’t tasted it yet, but I’ll be sure to let you all know how it is!

Workouts for the Week

I’m still super sore from Sunday’s Leg Insanity, but overall I’m feeling really good and still “on” my game!

Here are my workout plans for this week:

Monday:20 min. HIIT + Chest/Triceps (DONE)

Tuesday: Boxing

Wednesday:Legs + Bouldering (yup! Haven’t done that in a while!)

Thursday: Shoulders/Abs + Boxing

Friday: Full Body

Saturday: Back/Bi’s

Sunday: REST

Finally…I’m thinking about getting a Brazilian blow out. I NEVER feel like/have time to do my hair and it just ends up being kind of a mess. Anyone ever had one? I’ve heard the chemicals can be kind of harsh, so I’m curious. Let me know your experiences!

Is it just me or is today going by painfully slow? It’s weird. Usually my days FLY by and before I know it, it’s 9pm and I can’t figure out where the day went. Today, the clock just isn’t moving. Maybe it’s the supermoon…;-)

How’s your Tuesday going? I forgot my breakfast this morning and ended up with a coffee and a Quest Bar for breakfast.

I love my Cookies & Cream Quest Bars and all, but that is the most lame-o breakfast. I missed my eggs for sure!

Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day. My stomach is empty (making EVERYTHING taste better), and the day is fresh. I always start the day with a healthy breakfast because it sets the tone for the rest of the day. If I have a sugary or heavy breakfast, I’m less likely to make healthy choices throughout the rest of the day. Here are some of my favorite healthy breakfast options to get my day started:

I’m heading out of town with my man today to watch him do a seminar at an audio convention. Pretty cool! It’s in Tucson, AZ, which isn’t all that exciting, but it has its perks. Like….EEGEE’S!!!!! If you’ve never had or heard of an EEGEE’s, you should really travel to Tucson. Strawberry Lemonade, I’M COMIN’ FOR YA!

This week has been so strange, guys. I thought it was Monday yesterday. -_- Maybe I need this little trip out of town????

I did a fun Crossfit workout yesterday that I thought I’d share with you. This is to be done with a partner, but you could cut it in half and do it yourself too!

100 Hang Power Cleans – Partner Workout

Rules:Partner 1 does 10 burpees, then as many HPC’s as they can before dropping the bar. Once they drop the bar, the next partner does 10 burpees and as many HPC’s as they can before dropping the bar. You continue going back and forth with this until you and your partner collectively reach 100 HPC’s.

It’s a TOUGH one, but a lot of fun. I was shaking afterwards!

Workout Jealousy

We all need rest days. Working out every single day without a rest just isn’t sustainable. (Trust me, I’ve tried it.)

But have you ever been enjoying your rest day, perusing Facebook or Instagram, looked at a photo or workout someone posted…..and felt guilty???? I totally suffer from this sometimes. It’s almost a jealous feeling. I’ll see that someone did a crushing leg workout or a fun hike and think to myself “damn, she’s getting ahead” or “wow, I want to do that workout!”

It’s really silly when I think about it. I KNOW I need the rest days, but I can’t help but feeling a little like I’m getting behind, being lazy, or just flat out missing out on something fun.

Like this:

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed today. For the first time in a while, I actually got some GOOD sleep. It was quite refreshing. My new goal is to start shutting down MUCH earlier than I have been. I know how important sleep is, but I’ve been working so much that it’s gone a bit by the wayside. I feel recharged today and I know I could feel like this much more often if I actually slept more!

Friday night, Charlie launched his new service called Real Drum Tracks Now. It’s quite genius if you ask me. I could have the same drummer that plays for Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots) on my music? Um, yes please! Go check it out. 🙂

He hosted a party up at his studio and some great bands played too. It was a fun night!

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to get my body fat tested! Exciting right?! NOT! Haha. I was a bit nervous, but it turned out to be okay. Body-Spec is a company here in SoCal that brings out a truck with a full on scanner inside to REALLY test your body fat. I got a 9 page report and a full scan of my body, how much muscle I hold and where I hold it, how much fat I hold and where I hold it, etc. It was pretty cool and now I know where to go from here!

After a killer workout with Charlie, we spent the day just hanging out and doing random errands, etc. We ended the night watching Ride Along and passing out by 10:30pm. Partay Animals.

Sunday, we met some friends to do a meditation at Insight LA. Talk about something COMPLETELY new to me. It was actually really enjoyable and I’ll definitely go back. I’ve never meditated before, so it was difficult for me to get myself to chill out and focus, but it was much needed. Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch at Firehouse, I got a scoop of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Sweet cream and Cookies=HOLY YUM) and once again, parked it on the couch to watch a movie.

Just before it got dark out, Charlie suggested that we go play catch at the park. We both grew up playing baseball, so it’s definitely a fun activity that we do together. It was a BLAST. I miss playing so much. I like to think I’ve still got it…I told Charlie I’m trying out for the Major Leagues this year…so we’ll see. 😉

Update on the Challenge:

Week 1 went great! I stuck to my guns and ate pretty clean all week. Lots of fruit, paleo burgers, chicken and brown rice, veggies etc. I made the decision to keep cheese in my diet, as I don’t eat very much of it and it adds some flavor. I also don’t want to cut out anything that I’ll likely keep in my daily diet for the long-run. A little cheese doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s when you LOAD the cheese on EVERYTHING that you start to run into a problem.

I know this is what you REALLY wanted to know, but I mentioned that weekends would be a free-for-all with the exception of a calorie restriction. I set the restriction at 2,000 calories for me and here were my cheats:

I didn’t feel deprived whatsoever and also didn’t need to eat a house full of those foods. I also went in to today wanting to eat nothing but healthy food because all of that junk just makes me feel dehydrated and crappy.

Week 2 starts today! I’m going to make a point this week to log all of the foods I eat for an entire day so you guys can see what it’s like. Today’s workout is going to be 20 minutes of HIIT on the Stairmill + a Bouldering Session.

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Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! Mine was pretty low-key, but I think that was much-needed after Friday’s long day.

Friday was the 2nd filming day for the WBBC At-Home Fitness Program! We were in the sun for about 6.5 hours, did 4 workouts, and lots of other speaking footage. It was a ton of fun, but a ton of work, too! If you’re interested in the program, you can click this link to get on our waiting list. 😉

I’m a total doophus and forgot to wear sunscreen.

Ouch.

(Funny story about that “Kiss Me” balloon….it’s from Valentine’s day!! Charlie and I are trying to see how long it will stay inflated. Best.balloon investment.ever, if you ask me.)

The camera man and I have some very funny farmer’s tans going on!

His and Hers Sunburns

I’m not trying to make light of these sunburns. It’s obviously extremely dangerous, but we were just so frazzled in the morning that we both forgot sunscreen. Live and learn.

Here are some shots from the filming:

Lizzy and Anna

Lunge

Perfect Stretch

Anyways, I’m really excited for this to come out!

After filming and working out in the sun all day, we were STARVING. We found an AWESOME little Hawaiian burger shack nearby called, Shaka Shack Burgers. AMAZING. The sweet potato fries were probably the best I’ve ever heard. SUPER GREASY and DELICIOUS haha. I ordered the Turkey Burger and it was pretty awesome too.

Saturday

Charlie and I always talk about going to pawn shops to see if we can luck out with some smokin’ deals. It’s much more difficult these days since you can find out what everything is worth on the internet. We finally decided that this was the day we would actually go look!

We drove to Hollywood and went to a few different pawn shops. There was definitely some interesting stuff in them, but ultimately, we walked away empty handed. We ALMOST got a really killer deal on a vintage microphone, but alas, it didn’t work. Womp, womp.

We finished around 4:30pm and decided to go to the Arclight to see Neighbors.

This movie definitely had some hilarious moments, but overall, I’d give it a 7. Probably best to wait for it to come out on DVD, which nowadays should be about 2 weeks! Haha. (Remember when you used to have to wait MONTHS AND MONTHS for a movie to come out just for RENTAL….buying it was like a year. Crazy how times have changed.)

We finished off the night by making dinner, baking cookies (YUM) and watching Dexter.

Sunday

I woke up earlier than Charlie and started cleaning the house. Eventually he joined me and then we headed to the gym for a workout. We did the following supersets (weights/reps are mine…Charlie is stronger than me and did more weight plus higher box jumps):

Superset #1:

4 Sets of

-Medicine Ball Thrusters (16 lb ball x 15 reps)

-DB Push Ups w/ Rotation (10 lb DBs x 8 reps)

Superset #2:

4 Sets of

Heavy Deadlifts (139 lbs x 10 reps)

Burpee-Pull Ups (bw x 5 reps)

Superset #3:

2 Sets of

DB Shoulder Press (25lb DBs x 8 reps)

Box Jumps (24 inc. x 10 reps)

Charlie also helped me work on my form for box jumps. I was doing the 24 inch box, which I’ve done many times before, but my form wasn’t great. With the tips he gave me, I’m ready to tackle the tall 30 inch box. Just need to get some cajones, that’s all!

Some fun slo-mo videos of us!

That’s all I’ve got today! I’ll be back tomorrow morning with my workout plans for the week!

I’m working away, but already thinking about the weekend ahead. I’ve got some fun plans for Saturday! A group of friends from the gym are going to Mt. Baldy to do a hike. I’ve never been there, so I’m excited to do it! I haven’t been on an adventure in a while, it seems, so I’m more than ready for a break from L.A. I love this place, but it wears on you sometimes. A day or two somewhere quiet should do my body good. 😉

Chasing the ONE

I took a boxing class Tuesday night at ABA. It’s the boxing gym in the basement of the gym I work at. I have been going once a week for the last 6 weeks or so, and am loving it. I feel like I’m catching onto the combos and getting stronger/faster. I’ve always been able to hit really hard, but when you add in the moving parts and doing it QUICKLY, it can get tough and make your head spin. (fo’ real, they call out combos FAST down there).

Anyways, last night’s class was small…..and small classes mean more work time. The class is set up with 4 stations: mitt-work, bicycling, plyometrics, and heavy bags. Since we didn’t have many people last night, we skipped the heavy bags and just worked through the other 3 stations as many times as we could in an hour.

Hitting the mitts is definitely my favorite because you really feel like a bad-ass-mo-fo-boxer when you do it (or maybe it’s just me?). It’s about 3 minutes of hitting the mitts with a trained instructor that is calling out all types of combos for you to do. An example would be “2,3,2, double hook, catch left, double hook, up 4”. May not seem that hard, but what that means is a right punch, left hook, right punch, double left hook, catch left (they hit you), double left hook, 4 upper cuts, left hook, right punch. These are all being called out WHILE YOU’RE HITTING, so you really have to be on top of your mental game. You don’t exactly get time to think about it! 🙂

It’s such a BLAST, but last night I was hitting a wall physically. Towards the end of each round, I just felt like I had nothing left. I was giving it my all, and punching as hard as I could, but at the same time I was just becoming fatigued and my punches had less and less power as time went on. The instructor that I was hitting with would NOT let me quit. In fact, when I started to break down and hit softer, he made me do MORE and kept me going in order to make me push harder. I truly thought there was NOTHING left in the tank, but he wouldn’t let me quit. He kept yelling “come on Lizzy, HIT HARDER, Let’s go GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT, HIT HARDER!”. This actually happened in two separate rounds and whattayaknow……I was able to give it more. I hit harder, I grunted, and I just pushed through as much as possible. (I secretly also thought I was going to die, but that’s besides the point) 😉

I left class feeling amazing. Feeling like every ounce of energy I had was put into that class. It reminded me that while, yes, I push myself really hard on my own, it doesn’t compete with having someone to help push you even further. You might think you can’t (just like I did), but you CAN. The motivation to do MORE in class was just what I needed. Oddly enough, that motivation spilled into my work day on Wednesday and I had a kick-ass-get-it-done kind of day.

My point in telling you this story is that I’m CONSTANTLY asked where I get the motivation for my workouts, but RARELY asked where I get the motivation to work as hard as I do at my jobs. While, yes, I’m self-motivated, do you think I just have some kind of motivation machine sitting in my stomach pumping out motivation??????? Hell no!!!!

So then why do I seem to be self-motivated? It’s because I am constantly SEEKING motivation. Whether that be by going to a class where I know the instructor is going to push me, or watching a video online that inspires me to go lift heavy shit and take names while I’m doing it, it’s all encompassing. I’m constantly searching for the kindle to my fire. I know that if I STOP doing that, I’m going to lose the flame. Even on the days that I don’t want to search for motivation and feel the complete opposite, I still know I need to try.

So how exactly does that relate to work-life? It’s the spill-over effect. A cycle, if you will.

By getting motivated for fitness, I accomplish and achieve success in the gym.

By achieving success and feeling accomplished, I get heightened endorphins and the feeling of knowing I proved I was better than I thought.

When I then go to work, those feelings are still there! I end up getting a ton of stuff done and come up with tons of new ideas. (This is one of many reasons that I like to take a break in the middle of the day for a quick workout. It’s idea fuel, get-er-done propane.) Ya feel me?

I’ve alway said working out changed my life, but until you fully experience it yourself, it’s really hard to convey just how life-changing it is. Breaking through mental and physical barriers in the weight room, on the track, in a rock climbing gym, at the yoga studio, or wherever it might be WILL transfer into your everyday life. It takes hard work, consistency, dedication, PATIENCE, and the drive to do better. Lift more than you did last week, run farther than you ever have before. Knowing that not every day is a life-changing, break-through workout, and that some days it’s going to SUCK and you’re going to FAIL. But it’s when you get that ONE…..that ONE workout that makes you just feel like you’re on top of the world and nothing can touch you. It’s that ONE that makes it fucking worth it.

For me, it’s lifting weights and doing high intensity work outs, but whether it’s lifting weights, working on inversions in yoga, or running a marathon, it’s what resonates with YOU. I challenge each of you to go out and find what it is that you like to do. You don’t have to like it every time you do it, you just have to like it enough that you’ll keep trying. And I promise that if you DO keep trying……you’ll get that one….and just like a drug, you’ll continue to keep chasing that one down until you experience it again…..and trust me….you will.